Related papers: The most complete mass-dimension four topological …
In this essay we marshal evidence suggesting that Einstein gravity may be an emergent phenomenon, one that is not ``fundamental'' but rather is an almost automatic low-energy long-distance consequence of a wide class of theories.…
General Relativity is expected to break down in the high-curvature regime. Beyond an effective field theory treatment with higher-order operators, it is important to identify consistent theories with higher-curvature terms at the…
In this paper, we consider a family of $n$-dimensional, higher-curvature theories of gravity whose action is given by a series of dimensionally extended conformal invariants. The latter correspond to higher-order generalizations of the…
Gravitational wave observations of compact binaries allow us to test general relativity (and modifications thereof) in the strong and highly-dynamical field regime of gravity. Here we confront two extensions to general relativity, dynamical…
We study several aspects of higher-order gravities constructed from general contractions of the Riemann tensor and the metric in arbitrary dimensions. First, we use the fast-linearization procedure presented in arXiv:1607.06463 to obtain…
In this paper, we provide a vacuum solution with torsion in quadratic Riemann-curvature gravity. Physically, the solution means that vacuum can have a nonzero vacuum field with large torsion. We show that the Einstein-Hilbert action can be…
Three dimensional Einstein gravity with negative cosmological constant -1/\ell^2 deformed by a gravitational Chern-Simons action with coefficient 1/\mu is studied in an asymptotically AdS_3 spacetime. It is argued to violate unitary or…
The idea of the effective topological theory for high-energy scattering proposed by H. and E. Verlinde is applied to the $(2+1)$ dimensional gravity with Einstein action plus Chern-Simons terms. The calculational steps in the topological…
We show that inflation and current cosmic acceleration can be generated by a metric-affine f(R) gravity formulated in the Einstein conformal frame, if the gravitational Lagrangian L(R) contains both positive and negative powers of the…
The gravitational Lagrangian based on special relativity and the assumption of a fourth rank tensor interaction, derived by Kennedy (1972), is used to check Mach's principle in a homogeneous isotropic expanding universe. The Lagrangian is…
Constraints on the Covariant Canonical Gauge Gravity (CCGG) theory from low-redshift cosmology are studied. The formulation extends Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) by a quadratic Riemann-Cartan term in the Lagrangian,…
We discuss the choice of the Lagrangian in the Poincar\'e gauge theory of gravity. Drawing analogies to earlier de Sitter gauge models, we point out the possibility of deriving the Einstein-Cartan Lagrangian {\it without} cosmological term…
We consider the effects of higher curvature terms on a holographic dual description of boundary conformal field theory. Specifically, we consider three-dimensional gravity with a specific combination of Ricci tensor square and curvature…
These lectures are intended as a broad introduction to Chern Simons gravity and supergravity. The motivation for these theories lies in the desire to have a gauge invariant action -in the sense of fiber bundles- in more than three…
Quantum field theory successfully explains the origin of all fundamental forces except gravity due to the renormalizability problem. In this paper, we proposed a topological scenario to understand this puzzle. First, we proposed a $3+1$D…
We show that the combination of cubic invariants defining five-dimensional quasitopological gravity, when written in four dimensions, reduce to the version of four-dimensional Einsteinian gravity recently proposed by Arciniega, Edelstein &…
This paper has been withdrawn by the author after further work showed the proposed theoretical approach cannot fit planetary perihelion precession data. As presented, the theory doesn't fit gravitational light deflection by the sun either,…
We naturally extend the theory of gravity with a conformally coupled scalar field by only requiring conformal invariance of the scalar field equation of motion and not of the action. The classically extended theory incorporates a…
A complete canonical formulation of general covariance makes it possible to construct new modified theories of gravity that are not of higher-curvature form, as shown here in a spherically symmetric setting. The usual uniqueness theorems…
Current generalizations of the classical Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian formulation of General Relativity are reviewed. Some alternative variational principles are known to reproduce Einstein's gravitational equations, and should therefore be…